Smile on face, chin held high.
— Steven T. Dennis (@steventdennis.bsky.social) January 6, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Sometimes, character is what you do when everyone can see you. I know we’re all hurting, still, but if the peaceful transfer of power is important, there’s no ‘unless we really really object to the guy a narrow plurality of our fellow voters chose’ exemption.
I have nothing but respect for Vice President Harris, and for President Biden, for doing what the Constitution requires, regardless of their personal feelings. To quote a philosopher with whom I very seldom agree, Here I stand; I can do no other.
Congress certified President-elect Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election in proceedings that unfolded without challenge, in stark contrast to Jan. 6, 2021. Vice President Kamala Harris read the tally, including of her own defeat. pic.twitter.com/1M7hPXYYsg
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 6, 2025
VP Kamala Harris: "Today, I did what I have done my entire career, which is take seriously the oath that I have taken many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States." pic.twitter.com/jONODivgFK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2025
We will never forget the insurrection of January 6, 2021 — or that this year’s peaceful transfer of power is how it should have been four years ago. -NP pic.twitter.com/I09gbgBoZz
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) January 7, 2025
We don’t forget. We don’t, necessarily, forgive. We document every violation and we work to protect the vulnerable, especially among our own communities. It’s not gonna be an easy four years for any of us. Sniping at each other won’t make it easier or faster.
This man and a small group of capitol police officers singlehandedly saved our democracy four years ago.
In November, 77 million Americans said "to hell with them" and voted for the insurrectionists.
Your "Back the Blue" flags are a pathetic disgrace and your patriotism is bullsh*t.— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz.bsky.social) January 6, 2025 at 10:30 AM
There is a fabulous documentary that shows just how brutal January 6 was called The Sixth. It got buried behind a paywall and is finally free on Amazon. Everyone needs to see it variety.com/2024/tv/news…
— Laurie Goldberg (@lauriegoldberg.bsky.social) January 6, 2025 at 3:02 PM
If only because we don’t want to be like this pissy Nebraska Republican:
i’m not really a nOrMs and cIvIlItY guy but this kind of behavior is rude and embarrassing from a man who is very clearly old enough to know better, and his community ought to fucking shame him for it.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) January 6, 2025 at 2:20 PM
if you can’t behave yourself in front of the vice president of the united states and all of congress while your wife is being sworn in, you don’t deserve to go anywhere. stay home and fucking sulk.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) January 6, 2025 at 2:23 PM
guy can’t even let his wife have her moment in the sun without pissing all over it
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) January 6, 2025 at 2:26 PM
On The Road – ema – Indian Style Gangnam Style
O. Felix Culpa
100% correct. Thank you, AL.
Baud
Deb Fischer represents Nebraska. He is them.
NotMax
Major eyeroll encounter yesterday.
Walked past a Tesla (car, bot truck) in a parking lot with a huge KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker slapped on its rear.
Van Buren
If team GOP could feel shame, yesterday would be the day.
NotMax
Not official unless sworn on a Lee Greenwood bible.
//
TBone
The “someone just remote-activated my butt plug” energy on the face of that smarmy little Squeaker was too much, I had to nope out.
Suzanne
This is so embarrassing. I’m sure I hate Deb Fischer’s politics, but this is the kind of thing that makes me want to go out with her to get our nails done, maybe go wander around a home goods store, and listen to her talk until she feels safe enough to unload about the degrading crap that she puts up with every day in her marriage.
Professor Bigfoot
When I say I look forward to watching these people reinstate Jim Crow, just look at this bastard Fischer.
Shameless, hateful fuckers… and I believe the majority of our majority demographic will go along with it in the name of “national reconciliation.”
Glory b
Being rude and disrespectful to a black person, a woman and a Democrat?
Who had the temerity to reach for a position of power and leadership?
It’s a Republican trifecta!
All the better that he is holding a Bible!
Starfish (she/her)
@NotMax: There is a house that proudly put up a Kennedy for President sign and never took it down here.
Glory b
@Suzanne: Just stop, please.
Republican women know what they’re getting into.
I am reminded of a pre Civil War letter a northern woman wrote about a visit to southern relatives, about how unaware they were of the origins of the mulatto children populating their plantations.
lowtechcyclist
Quite the sore winner, that Mr. Fischer.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I heard yesterday that Capitol tours do not include any information about what happened on Jan 6th. That kind of crap is how we ended up here. Our leaders should have insisted it was part of EVERY tour.
satby
Not really as eye opening as I would have thought that people on “our” team are ok with rule breaking if it furthers our own goals. Great post AL.
Suzanne
@Glory b: Black women (rightfully) ask liberal white women all the time to change the minds of their conservative white woman family members and associates. That’s how we do it. It’s a process.
Chris
Open thread celebration:
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of modern French fascism, is finally, FINALLY, dead.
It’s difficult to take all that much pleasure in it, given how far his movement has come since (he hasn’t even been its leader in ages).
Nonetheless, the guy has been a bogeyman since I was a kid, someone I understood to be a Bad Guy long before I was old enough to really understand politics, not unlike Osama Bin Laden. My inner eleven-year-old, the schoolkid who was repeating off-color jokes about his death during recess all the way back in the late nineties, is happy, and tells me I should take a moment to savor this too.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@NotMax:
Similar thing here. Another of the mass of white professionals of a certain demographic that’s moved here in recent years had the only Kennedy yard sign out for the longest time. Probably the only one I saw in Denver.
Betty Cracker
I’m trying to keep despair at bay by staying busy around the house. This week, I stripped paint off a countertop and re-tiled a backsplash board. Next up: repainting cabinets and reorganizing two closets in desperate need of order..
I went through the fridge and pantry and tossed a ton of ancient spices/packets/half-empty bottles of stuff I can now admit I’ll never use.
Last night I made chicken Marsala for dinner, and it turned out okay but took three times as long as the recipe said it would take. This might be a “me” problem instead of a recipe flaw, though it’s a fact that recipes often severely underestimate the time required.
This morning I’m assembling pernil in the slow cooker. It’s Puerto Rican roast pork. A friend I used to work with ages ago taught me how to make it. Wonderful flavor AND lots of leftovers to use in sandwiches, tacos, etc.
shitgibbon who?
satby
@Glory b: I was going to say the same thing. They know, and they’re on board. If she didn’t want to deal with her asshole husband she would have dumped him. The divorce rates tend higher in red states, just like all the other negative lifestyle markers.
lowtechcyclist
As long as one doesn’t get in the way of the Constitutional order, there’s nothing wrong with not being the person carrying it out if someone else can and will do the job.
I’d have suggested that MVP take a pass on yesterday, except fuck Chuck Grassley.
OTOH, there’s nothing that says that either Biden or Harris needs to be present at the inauguration or at any related ceremonies. This transfer of power will happen regardless, they’re not standing in its way, there’s no need to countenance it any further than that.
Kay
Lawyer breaks down what New York’s prenatal leave means for employees and employers
20 hours of paid leave to go to prenatal appointments – great idea and they got it passed. Bravo.
TBone
@Chris: thanks for that news.
Glory b
@Suzanne: Neighbors and family? Sure. I just figured that a woman elected to the Senate is probably too far gone.
But, hope springs eternal, and you know white women better than I do.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Agree. Just don’t show up. No drama.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: Biden has said he will be there. On the bright side, it will give the BJ commenters and other loyal Democrats a great opportunity to shit on him one last time.
Kay
You won’t read about NY’s new paid prenatal leave on X, I reckon :)
Daddy Musk will have to censor that.
Chris
@TBone:
1/6 is a date that will live in infamy. Nice of the guy to try and make 1/7 a date that’ll cheer me up.
rodwell
The Republicans acted like impertinent teenagers yesterday during the certification. It is barely tolerable when it is 15 years old, because you know most will grow out of it. They are adults and their behavior was deplorable. Half this country forgot how to act in a social setting.
Shakti
@Baud: I don’t understand the point of his behavior. His presence wasn’t required. He’s not owning anyone with petulance. If it bothered him that much he could’ve sat in the D.C. hotel or Nebraska, where it might be warmer.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
“Honey, have you seen my durian jam? Could have sworn there was still a half a jar in here.”
:)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
I believe you meant to say “loyal” Democrats.
But that’ll be overshadowed by what will be the darkest or second darkest day in US history coming up on the 20th, 6 Jan 2021 being the other contender for that dubious prize.
gene108
@lowtechcyclist:
I do not understand why any Democrat wants to preserve norms and traditions with what the Republican party is.
O. Felix Culpa
@rodwell:
No forgetting involved: they know full well what they’re doing. It’s deliberate.
Suzanne
@Glory b: Well, to be fair, I know no white women elected to the Senate. And I have cut every conservative white woman out of any voluntary, close-enough-to-discuss-politics relationship at this point. But in my younger, more idealistic days, I grew up with a lot of religiously and politically conservative friends. Some of them have since fallen away from that, and have told me that those personal relationships helped with that process.
One friend from middle school….. hoooooo boy. That’s a story.
Kay
No one said they shouldn’t do their duty AL. That’s a straw man. Some said they didn’t think “democracy prevailed” or whatever we were patting ourselves on the back as a country for. It was a bigger observation on the state of the “rule of law”.
Just like disappointment in the performance of the DOJ was never “frog march people without trial”
Baud
@Kay:
It was posted on Blue sky a few days ago, and trolls or sincere people in the replies immediately jumped on how it didn’t go far enough. I figure that’s how bad actors use social media to get people not to support progress.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
satby
@lowtechcyclist: So they should be as childish and rude as Fischer and Trump. I guess that’s some sort of goal.
Baud
@Shakti:
The disrespect was the end goal.
That’s why I keep reminding people that we should hold on to our disrespect for them. They appreciate the power it has.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@gene108:
Because we’re the minority in this country, and we can’t win a battle based on might. What we have are superior values.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Except, as I’ve learned from white people here on this very blog, that those white supremacist friends and relatives just clam up when approached about their racism and misogyny, and keep on doing what they’ve always done.
And I have NO idea how to deal with that.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia:
Biden is demonstrating strength and grace. He’s doing the right thing, as is MVP.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m coming to the view that people are turning away from us because so many battles we want to fight to the death are so small.
Kay
@Baud:
Was it really 100% negative? I’ve gotten wary of that claim around here.
Zuckerberg has gone full MAGA now too and announced he’ll be following Musk’s lead. If I were on Facebook I’d post anything pro D I could find just to see if we can still get past the censors. I feel like Facebook is going to be harder for them to manage.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
There’s a huge gulf between criticizing a decision someone makes, and shitting on them. Just saying.
I believe Biden has been the best President of my lifetime. I also believe he is wrong to lend his presence to any more of the activities surrounding this transfer of power than is absolutely Constitutionally required. I can hold these two beliefs at the same time: one does not contradict the other.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
It’s affect on them was on full display during the campaign as we were kicking that approach into high gear…and then turned if off because of those glorious experts known as long-time Democratic Campaign Stagetists.
Professor Bigfoot
@gene108: If we ignore the Constitution also, then *what’s the bloody point?
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
People keep saying that, but I’ve seen no evidence of it. But I don’t care. I’m looking forward, not back.
TBone
@Chris: it is fitting!
Hildebrand
@zhena gogolia: Yep.
I’ve always thought that places like the NYTimes post so many stories crapping on Democrats because they know their readership very well. Hint – it ain’t Republicans who make up the bulk of their subscriber base.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t know if literally 100%. But the replies were pretty negative. From what I’ve seen, the trolls are more likely to jump on posts from news agencies than randim posters, unless it’s a prominent social media name.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
Well, the dissenter never said “ignore the constitution” but keep building that straw man.
TBone
Brian Stelter thread on BlueSky about the upcoming changes to Fascistbook (Meta). Fuckerberg has really jumped the shark as the 🧵 shows. A tidbit:
bsky.app/profile/brianstelter.bsky.social/post/3lf5mlbzka22p
satby
@Baud: I’ve mentioned my late dad, a homicide detective back when Chicago really was the murder capital of the country. He used to tell me that the real power in any hostile encounter (obviously not armed ones) was in keeping your cool and “polite-ing them into the ground” as he called it. He said it always first escalated as people became more frenzied in their anger, and eventually subsided when the reaction they were trying to provoke never occurred. We’re at the frenzy stage.
Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi used similar strategies. Probably where he learned it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Hildebrand: That fits with my theory that white people hate the Democrats because they perceive the Democratic Party as “the party of Black people,” and simply cannot support them.
“There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
Kay
@Baud:
Okay. It’s just “negative” is subjective. If the definition of “negative” is anything short of 100% rah rah then I would suggest not everyone shares that definition.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Okay, then what did he mean?
Please, clarify this for me. Hell, I might even agree!
Kay
@TBone:
They’re going to censor. People should start testing it now. Facebook is SO fragmented and diverse and huge I don’t think he can lock it down.
Glory b
@Suzanne: i will remain hopeful then.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
Well, I have always believed that simply not showing up at a social occasion is far less rude than showing up and being overtly rude. So no, I don’t think I’m suggesting that Biden and Harris should be anywhere near as rude as Fischer.
Not sure which behavior of Trump’s you’re referring to, he’s so regularly rude that who knows. My mind for some reason goes back to a (NATO?) meeting where Trump shoved aside a European leader or two in order to make sure that nobody was between him and the camera. If you believe simply not showing up is as rude as that, then I must, with all due respect, say that I don’t understand where you’re coming from.
Baud
@Kay:
I explained the nature of the comments I saw. I’m not going to try to dig up the original post. I found the replies largely negative.
Hildebrand
@Professor Bigfoot: I think that’s right – it certainly was born out in this last election. People had a clear cut choice, and white america tipped the scales and reelected a criminal bigot, because at least he wasn’t that black woman.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
Norms and traditions are different than laws. That’s what he meant. He was responding to the commentor who thinks Biden shouldn’t attend the swearing in. That’s not a law.
Baud
@satby:
As I indicated last night in a reply to one of Cole’s blue sky posts, we’re going to see a lot of people who are envious over the evil things Trump will do over the next four years.
TBone
@Kay: from that thread (there’s good reason I call it Fascistbook)
Kay
@Baud:
I saw it on TikTok, where I only comment- I don’t read the comments. Fuck no. They’re morons :)
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Ah, okay, I can get to that.
I don’t know that I agree– I honestly don’t think it much matters, but I can see that.
What I hear a lot of is people wanting to ignore the Constitution and I get that too; but that would only screw us further
Edited to clarify: I don’t think Joe and Kamala boycotting the ceremonies would have any real effect, but this country is so massively fucked up right now “I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.”
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: they might claim up, but their families know where they stand. People like to avoid conflict. So, to keep pushing you could use accessories, like the MAGA mopes do. I do it all the time in the red state farmers market. BLM buttons, Pride flags and buttons, T-shirts; I even had a “Trans Rights” yard sign at my booth in honor of my friend. Sometimes people ask, sometimes they would lean in and tell me in a low voice about their gay/ trans family member. Conversation will develop.
Kay
@TBone:
So, so funny. It is EXACTLY what they all said they objected to, but flipped ideologically.
I knew it of course. It wasn’t “wokeness” they were objecting to. It was political speech from liberals.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Well, there are some people who are really good at this, and I am not one of them. So.
If I can share my general observations — white lady who grew up around a ton of religious conservatives — many of them are utterly, secretly plagued with doubt and misery. They can sometimes be coaxed away, but it’s a process. They’re scared of losing their entire community and friend group. They’re scared of being seen as weird. It’s easier before they get married and have kids. But, if you can get them out of their communities slowly, and they can meet people and make friends at college or whatever….. that’s a step down that road. The changes come slowly, over many cups of coffee and play dates and sometimes it never happens.
I have a friend, a white lady who grew up LDS and was very conservative, because that’s how she was raised. After her divorce from a good Mormon boy, she now identifies as lesbian and votes Dem. In my more thoughtful and reflective moments, I hold onto hope that personal relationships will lead to more positive changes. But it takes a ton of patience and the success rate is not good. That’s the hill to climb.
BlueGuitarist
@Chris:
we will have to keep working at making Jan 6 a day that others (especially people too young to remember) understand must live in infamy.
Re celebrating today:
Also, Happy birthday to all who have today as their birthday and are glad it wasn’t yesterday.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
Show me the “ignore the constitution” person or people. Either yesterday or today. Doesn’t even have to be those words. Show me who said they shouldn’t ratify the election.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Political speech from anyone who isn’t a straight white Christian man, or that doesn’t support and defend straight white Christian men regardless of what those straight white Christian men might do.
Shakti
@Baud:
See, this is why I don’t apply my norms that they don’t follow to their benefit. Or the benefit of doubt. Because that’s deference. And I don’t owe them that.
Snake eats tail. If I what I think of them doesn’t matter and I don’t pretend to respect them, why would they care?
Like if this guy and his wife truly thought this exercise was dumb, couldn’t they get a someone else to swear her in, freestyle? Like if Harris was unable to do this (like Pence nearly was prevented from doing so) who would’ve done it? Nobody would pay attention to this snoozefest exercise except C Span junkies exercise for what their party leaders followers did the last time.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: I can’t. Not in those words.
So I’ll just let that one go. Like I said earlier, you’re right- norms and traditions are not in the Constitution, and although I don’t know if ignoring them would have any positive effect, it’s not the same as ignoring The Big Document, like the Supremes seem to do.
Jeffro
@Professor Bigfoot:
correct, although I would add ‘most’ or ‘a majority of ‘ in front of ‘white people’
at my recommendation, Froette has been reading “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson and as a result the whole Fro family is having some good discussions about America’s racial history and hierarchies.
Considering that there are tens of millions of young voters who didn’t even know about trumpov’s Access Hollywood tapes from just 8 short years ago, getting more basic American history out to them seems like a worthy goal.
rikyrah
@Kay:
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
satby
@lowtechcyclist: Trump didn’t go to Biden’s inauguration. That’s what I meant. First president in 152 years not to.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
I no longer really need Costco because my giant family mostly grew up but I’m sticking with their annual membership JUST because they stood up to these fucking stupid, narrow, FAD FOLLOWING people and went on the side of their customers and said they would continue diversity initiatives.
Also Costco is where I saw a really tall Black man wearing a Harris flag around his shoulders like a cape. In Indiana, no less. High point of the election for me.
Betty
I read that Mr. Fischer is a college professor. That makes his ignorant behavior even more objectionable, imo.
Chris
@TBone:
Facebook has turned into a complete far-right cesspool in the last couple of years, to a degree that wasn’t true even in 2020, and it’s hard to think it’s not intentional. I can’t count how many times I’ve blocked a fascist meme from some bot, blocked the source of the bot, only to have the exact same meme pop immediately back up under a different name.
At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be dropping it. Kind of a shame because I enjoyed having that one link to two or three hundred high school and college classmates that I’m never going to keep in touch with proactively, but eh, it’s not like I ever see them on Facebook anymore; it’s 95% bots at this point. Also kind of a shame because not all the bots are bad, they send plenty of puppy and kitty videos my way; but it doesn’t really make up for the bullshit, especially if it’s about to get worse.
mrmoshpotato
@TBone:
Ok then. LOL!
TBone
@Kay: that’s how I got sent to FB jail so. many. times. and received my Badge of Honor lifetime ban (erasure). I hope many frivolous hours of wasted time there keep the Nazis busy busy busy.
TBone
@Chris: it was true in 2020 also.
TS
Both Hilary Clinton & Kamala Harris did what they had to do with honor & dignity. They showed everyone why they were nominated and capable of doing the job of President of the United States
All I want to do now is watch the train wreck & say I told you so every chance I get – and I don’t even live in the United States. The world is shattered by what the majority of states in the US have decreed, Trudeau is the first to go, there will be more.
In saner times, no-one who ever took part in the January insurrection would ever hold political power again, but that was then & we are now.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: The nearest Costco to me was 30 miles away, but word came that they were opening one here in town– so me and Mrs. B cruised up to that further one and signed up before the one in our town opened. Heh, before the building was completed!
We go there to get a couple of things, leave with a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff every time!
Costco and Penzey’s I will always patronize.
Even when I DON’T need 20 rolls of paper towels.
satby
@Baud: agree. Now, will we see more people turned off or even repulsed? Yeah, I think so. Hope so. But the wild card is always humans.
Chris
@TBone:
No, not to this point. At least my feed wasn’t. It’s been getting steadily worse forever, but as late as 2020 it wasn’t completely suffocated by bots and these bots weren’t as aggressively right-wing.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty: I feel sorry for any Black, Latino, or queer students in his class for sure.
Kay
@TBone:
We should prepare for speech crackdowns by the billionaires and their politicians. They are absolutely coming. They’re going to throttle dissent.
Shakti
ETA: Honestly I was scared for my cousin and her family that day. They were in Pittsburgh visiting my uncle, who had turned 80. In the family chat, another cousin said people were storming the capital, turn on the TV.
My cousin and her family lived in a suburb that was convenient to the subway line. I feared a mob with free floating anger would be dangerous to her, her cousin and their kids. So I called her cell phone, her husband’s cell phone and my uncle’s house, and cell phone, to make sure she wasn’t driving back home.
Dumb thing to do when panicking, I know.
TBone
@Chris: sorry, I don’t see it anymore so you have a better grip on how far it has devolved. I was banned for life in 2020 for my relentless DJT & RWNJ trolling.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Since this conversational thread seems to go back to a comment of mine, apparently I’m the ‘he’ here. I’ll just note that I said (italics added):
There are backups to all the Constitutional officers. If Kamala Harris had been hospitalized with a stroke yesterday morning, Chuck Grassley as Senate president pro tem would have stepped in and fulfilled the Constitutional obligation for someone to preside over the counting of the electoral votes.
One can argue about the propriety of Harris choosing to step aside and letting Grassley carry out this Constitutional duty, but that would not violate the Constitution in the least. There is no argument here for violating the Constitution.
TBone
@Kay: one of my favorite BlueSky accounts for Antifa content was already deactivated a few days ago. Concerning (bad feelings in my gut).
mrmoshpotato
@Chris: It’s a start.
mrmoshpotato
@TBone:
Badge of honor.
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: Once upon a time one of the tag-lines that Cole had here was “how has Obama failed us again today?” or some such. I assume it was probably meant to mock the media, but damn if this last year hasn’t proven it to be the perfect encapsulation of BJ commenters.
It’s funny seeing people in this thread rightfully rolling their eyes at this Nebraska dude for his performative, petty, disrespectful bullshit while also preemptively complaining that Biden not being willing to do the same, meaningless bullshit is why Dems suck.
I may have to take a lengthy break because good lord the knee-jerk impulse to shit on Dems is just ugh…
narya
Last night Maddow did a whole piece on bronze statues that showed up in Philadelphia, Seattle (? not sure I got that one right), and the Mall in DC. The first one had a plaque about TCFG having been convicted of sexual assault; the second was similar; the third was a bronze (!!) statue of a desk–Pelosi’s–with a large bronze poop on top, protesting J6. All protest statues. I had NO idea any of these occurred; it was interesting.
Kay
@TBone:
Liberal blogging really bloomed in the early aughts in response to media and Republicans shutting down any criticism of Bush v Gore in the interest of “comity” and “moving forward” and then was supercharged with the lies they told us about the Iraq invasion and the silencing of critics of that invasion.
I’m hoping something else lights up in response to this new lockstep Dear Leader initiative from the tech oligarchs. It will. But it will bubble up from the cheap seats. Not top down. It never is.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Regarding yesterday, a rare librul in my nationwide gaming circles (also lives in GA) posted this:
Happy Benedict Donald Day
I snorted, then massively sighed.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Sadistic bullies who demand that their sadistic bullying be celebrated. The last time we saw that on the world stage, it didn’t end until their cities were shattered ruins and their Great Leader ended his reign with a mouth full of cyanide and a bullet in his brain. I won’t be fully satisfied until the last Trumpist on the planet has completed his journey to eternal torment with a detour through a wood chipper (although I’ll settle for a proper, legally authorized gallows).
If, in all likelihood, they end up suffering for what they’re doing to the rest of us, my sympathy will be reserved entirely for their victims.
And if anyone tries to convince me otherwise, they can also rot.
Suzanne
Also, if I can share an observation….. the religious conservatives I grew up with were not alienated from Dems/liberalism primarily because of association with black people. They hated — and continue to hate — Dems and liberalism because they are absolutely terrified and grossed out by LGBTQ+ people. Dems are the party of TEH GAYYYYYY!!!! It was overwhelming.
Please note that I am not saying in any way that they aren’t racist. But I think a purely racial analysis overlooks how freaked out they are by gays. Having a gay family member is literally a secret shame. And it touches most of their families and they have estrangements and they’re terrified of their kids ever encountering a gay person because they think it’s contagious.
And the ones who feel impulses (“same-sex attraction”) bottle that shit up for years or decades and that leads to all kinds of self-loathing and judgment.
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: he would claim it wasn’t her race, it’s that Harris is a Demoncrat. But face it, we all know how we became Demoncrats.
Baud
@satby:
That’s the argument they make to get away with racial gerrymandering.
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Too busy pounding his tiny fists on the floor and throwing ketchup everywhere.
O. Felix Culpa
@UncleEbeneezer:
Same. I do not see how Biden and Harris displaying decency and decorum is betraying democratic values. Rather the opposite. Neither are they “obeying in advance” by showing up at these events.
First, their non-appearance would not change the outcome. The Evil Orange Clown will get inaugurated whether they’re present or not. Second, they’re showing How It Should Be Done. There are effective ways of fighting the fascists, and there are ineffective performative ways. I understand that the latter can feel emotionally gratifying, but it’s not how true leaders behave.
satby
@Suzanne: it leads to suicides.
Soprano2
I don’t for a minute believe they were “unaware”, they were just acting for their Northern relative. I’m sure that was something everyone knew that you didn’t mention in “polite society”. They knew perfectly well where those children came from.
Ksmiami
@gene108: exactly. Fuck that shit. I want to destroy them and rebuild a better country for the future.
Kay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Dave Weigel wrote that Republicans violated another norm that had been in place- they hooted and hollered during the recitation of the electoral vote totals. He said he’s never seen that before. They also cheered when Walz’s (losing) number was read.
Absolute trash people.
satby
@Baud: yep. It’s never race*
* It’s always race except when it’s misogyny. Or both.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
There’s plenty of room for that anger in any resistance. It can’t be ALL that but there’s room for anyone operating in good faith and towards the same goals. We’re the minority. We need all of us.
Soprano2
Doing this to my cabinets is on my list of things to do. I looked at some of the pudding mix we have last night; some of it says “best by 05” on it. That’s stuff hubby got but never used. I’m sure there are a lot of spices that aren’t really good anymore. Plus, I have two cans of baking powder; the newest one has 2018 on it!
Soprano2
@Kay: You mean the “great dad” won’t promote prenatal leave for pregnant women? How surprising……s/s/s/s/s/
Chris Johnson
@Professor Bigfoot: Nor I.
But note some of the things we brought up. Being a white people is a lot colder, more bitter than you’re used to. That also means those of us (a not insignificant number) who are the John Browns, the enemies of the incoming regime, take more naturally to gritting our teeth and standing fast in the face of our own families and friends being enemies.
I’ve got folks who have been close for years and who have gone wrong. My word there is ‘this is trouble, it’s gonna get bad’. They will try to downplay this, in part because they want to be in denial and continue to believe I’m the one who’s fucked up. It’s my job to shake my head, say ‘nope! This is trouble’ and change the damn subject as if they are children not to be reasoned with.
‘cos they are trained to be, and they are as white-stubborn and unmoveable as I am. And they ARE going to face the consequences of their actions, because their America is NOT MEANT to be great. It’s a bust-out for Putin, it’s meant to break everything, always has been, their hopes are lies.
They will end up taking up arms against ‘their own side’… to the extent they are smart enough not to go to their deaths trying to fight ‘the Jew’ or any and all replacements for that concept. They’re shadow-boxing and if they were the third Reich it would be easier for them to believe the dream for longer.
But they’re not.
They’re being led into a trap that will be sprung over-hastily, because Russia MUST ruin the US before they’re themselves destroyed. And they are not really going to be happy with a curtain-rod sparrow, and they’re gonna be pissed, and none of this is all that secret, is it?
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
152 years? Then it’s a tradition that has been broken before. (By Andrew Johnson, if my arithmetic is correct.) Now I’m kinda curious just how often the outgoing President did or didn’t attend his successor’s inauguration in the pre-Civil War part of the 19th century.
Trump’s presence wasn’t missed.
Also, that’s one of the least rude things he’s ever done.
Actually, you missed one. I don’t recollect Richard Nixon attending Gerald Ford’s being sworn in. I believe he was already on a plane to San Clemente.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: It’s hard to influence people if you never talk to them. It’s a contradictory message we’re getting, isn’t it?
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne:
Maybe the Mormons you knew didn’t talk about race, but the LDS church has a long history of vile views and behavior on the issue. So maybe they didn’t need to talk about it. Of course they’re not the only church with those vile views, and they did change official doctrine on Black people in 1978, but the internalized racism didn’t disappear then.
Which is not to say that they’re not also squicked out by LGBTQ+ people. It’s just that so many among us seem to think that folks not articulating race as a motivating factor for their behavior means it’s not a motivating factor.
ETA: or what @satby said in #112.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Kay:
Like I said, sadistic bullies. I will be a year and a day dead before I vote for a Republican ever again for any office anywhere. They’d have to raise my corpse with a voodoo ritual and command it to vote for them. And because I wouldn’t put that past them to try that, I’m going to leave instructions for my remains to be cremated and the ashes scattered on two different continents.
zhena gogolia
@Hildebrand: Right. All you have to do is look at the comments.
Suzanne
@satby:
Yes, it does. It leads to family ruptures, and these fucked-up marriages where secret cheating goes on, and just utter misery.
Meeting openly LGBTQ+ people at college — and realizing that they are normal — is often the first step for people who grow up in a conservative milieu to find their way out.
Soprano2
For most this is true, but there were definitely people who wanted this. I understand it, even though I know it wouldn’t be a wise thing to do.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Right? They can OPINE endlessly on what women “should” do but not one of them ever lends a hand.
Those little kids of his he’s currently carrying as luxury accessories? He’s keeping them from their mother because he’s a rich asshole who is bullying her in a custody dispute. Honestly, I’d like some state agency to do a well check.
TBone
@narya: I saw that & love it! She’s supporting artists, which I have advocated here since they SPEAK UP.
satby
@lowtechcyclist: that’s because he didn’t lose an election, he resigned. Ford was his VP, power wasn’t transitioned to an opposing party.
zhena gogolia
@Hildebrand: This is it. The rest is (unnecessary) commentary.
Starfish (she/her)
@Glory b: If you can find the letter, I would love to read it.
Her colleagues can drag her every day. “After that stunt your husband pulled, let’s see if we can find you a good divorce attorney. Let’s ask MTG who hers was.”
“It is too bad that your husband, who has no chin, was suffering from a seizure and could not let go of the good book to shake hands.”
Belafon
She’s a DEI hire.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: I know.
Soprano2
I hope someone writes a book about this someday and tells us what happened. Why did they stop an approach that was clearly working, and positive? I want the full story, not just “the strategists said stop”.
Kay
@Soprano2:
OK. But can we agree someone saying “Garland is not up to the job” is not a demand for extrajudicial execution? Saying that it is obviously a tactic to shut down dissent. That’s how it’s done.
My beef with the DOJ is bigger than Garland. They’ve sucked for years. Compare the lawyer for the Biden labor department with the potted plants in the DOJ. She PUSHED. She went right to the limits of her power. The Right hated her for it.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: Zuckerberg fired all his fact checkers and is going to go with community notes instead.
bsky.app/profile/craigsilverman.bsky.social/post/3lf5nu5qxg22o
satby
And now for something completely different (and I hope Mayhew / Anderson takes up this subject again): Paul Krugman today.
He’s really enjoying being out from under the failing NYT
Soprano2
@TBone: I liked the commenter who said Zuck is announcing he’s turning it into a Nazi bar. Oh joy, FB already sucks quite a bit, I can’t wait for it to get worse.
Belafon
@Belafon: (I should stipulate that I was talking about his wife. I realized that too late.)
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: Yup. This boring stuff. Again?
Suzanne
@O. Felix Culpa: Eh, the Mormons and Evangelicals I know absolutely had/have problematic racial attitudes. (As I said above, I am by no means saying that racism is not a potent force.) And you’re absolutely right about the LDS Church’s long history with anti-Blackness.
Ever seen the musical “The Book of Mormon”? There’s a line…. “I believe in 1978, God changed his mind about Black people!!!”.
But holy shit. The homophobia is absolutely staggering. One of the biggest elements of the fear was that they weren’t sure if they could visually identify LGBTQ+ people to stay away from them. I went to Evangelical church with friends a few times as a teenager, and literally heard preachers make comments about Democrats being “the party of gays”. They’re scared of colleges and cities because of gays. They might have a gay neighbor and not know it! There’s a secret gay agenda!!! It’s utterly bizarre and pervasive.
Soprano2
@satby: Once I became an adult I learned that if you laughed along when people tried to make fun of you, pretty soon they quit because it isn’t fun for them anymore. I guess that’s the same idea.
TBone
@narya:
@TBone:
One was a big, bronze tiki torch that so offended the torch wielders that a guy smashed it down with his skateboard.
TBone
@Soprano2: it works beautifully! I mean, if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re done for! Even when you don’t really feel like laughing, it disarms them.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Oh, yeah, I sure saw the same thing growing up around a lot of religious conservatives and just not-particularly-religious dopey guy culture in the 1980s. Gay men, specifically, terrified and disgusted them more than anything else (except possibly abortion, for the religious ones) and they’d openly talk about exterminating them. It was this visceral horror like they thought gay men were just itching to rape them.
With Black people… well… I suspect some of them were more comfortable around Black people than white liberals because this whole anxious structure of liberal guilt wasn’t weighing them down. But their racism manifested as “I think their trouble is all their own fault, affirmative action is oppressing us, they’re getting special deals we don’t get,” etc. etc. I’m reminded of that old saying that in the South they don’t care how close the Black man gets as long as he doesn’t get too big, and in the North they don’t care how big he gets as long as he doesn’t get too close.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: That tracks with my experience with white evangelical family members and acquaintances growing up. Racism is a huge part of why they hate liberals, but panic about “women’s lib” and LGBTQ mainstreaming and how that might affect the existing power structures is/was huge. Any analysis that leaves that out is incomplete.
Soprano2
I don’t know if they all hate them, but I think that’s why a lot of white people won’t vote for Democratic candidates even though they support a lot of our ideas – they don’t want to vote for the party that supports and empowers people who aren’t white. You see that in MO, where the people voted to expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage, legalize abortion, legalize recreational marijuana, and repeal the “right to work” that the Republicans passed. This same electorate gave Republicans full control of the state government. How else can you explain that?
billcoop4
And, I’ve long suspected, a lot of spousal and child abuse stemming from the self-loathing and judgement.
BC
Kay
@Soprano2:
One gets a different perspective on this as a small town lawyer. Federal prosecutors are wildly powerful. I’ve seen them in action going after low status people. They can fucking MOVE when they want to. I see this inequitable treatment. I would like it addressed and rectified. They cut a sweetheart deal with Epstein. A man who trafficked girls as young as junior high. It was reprehensible and it is corruption.
narya
@Soprano2: I did the spices when I redid the kitchen–tossed anything that smelled off. The pudding mixes are probably similar, i.e., you’ll be able to smell if it’s off. The baking powder you really do have to toss; it stops working. That is one of the only things in my entire kitchen that gets replaced because of the date on it (you don’t want to know the “best by” dates on a lot of stuff in my fridge).
Another Scott
@Soprano2: I’m no expert, but my understanding is that the traditional campaign playbook is you lock up and motivate your base, then you broaden your message to appeal to normies. My impression is that Harris-Walz was doing both from the beginning. Beyonce and A.K.A. and Hot Dish and Mind Your Own Business. I don’t know if anything changed in the campaign approach by the end, but maybe I missed it.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The root causes of the generic “religious conservatives” appellation regarding LGBT+ and it’s association with the Democratic Party is relatively recent, I use the term ‘relatively’ deliberately.
Marching in Teh Big Clusterfuck Of Teh Gays March in DC in 1995 (you had to be there), while there was a modicum of Dem support (Clinton sent a “letter of support” which was read by Nancy Smash (she’s been the most ‘leading edge’ establishment Dem on this issue over the years), it was exactly that, a modicum.
Whereas the fundamental racism at the core of religious conservatives has been documented and written about for decades. A 2021 book by Univ of Penn prof Anthea Butler is a good overview and just one of many:
uncpress.org/book/9781469661179/white-evangelical-racism/
And there’s plenty of material in the racist past of the Mormon sect:
sltrib.com/news/2017/06/09/39-years-later-priesthood-ban-is-history-but-racism-within-mormon-ranks-i…
Hating on Teh Icky Gayz is simply another layer of white bigotry pushed by religious conservatives with a known track record and playbook honed from decades of racial animus towards blacks.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: EVERYONE who is not a straight white Christian man is in danger from the Party of the Straight White Christian Man.
gene108
@Professor Bigfoot:
There’s a huge difference between not observing norms and traditions and ignoring the Constitution.
Democrats have hurt themselves by clinging to unwritten norms of D.C. politics and hamstrung their ability to counter Republican power grabs.
There’s no upside to Biden and Harris sticking around past 12:00 pm. It just further shows Democrats were exaggerating when they said Trump’s like Hitler and American democracy will die if he’s elected.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
False equivalence, as I have said earlier in this thread. Not showing up is nowhere near the same as showing up and being a jackass. That is true at any level of occasion.
I will add that attending an occasion is to a certain extent giving one’s blessing to it, assuming one behaves normally when there. There is no need for Biden to bless this transition. Performing any duties required by the Constitution will suffice.
Saying “I disagree with Biden doing X” seems to be the new “shitting on Dems.” Such is life, I guess.
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
though it’s a fact that recipes
oftenalways severely underestimate the time required.Fixed.
TBone
@Kay: in your honor music from females
m.youtube.com/watch?v=XMQSVsDHGD8
Nukular Biskits
@Soprano2:
This is one of the things I’m constantly self-debating with respect to leaving Twitter and Facebook, the only social media platforms nearly all of my elected officials use to “interact” (yeah, I know: That interaction is only one-way) with constituents.
For example, I can rail all day long about that idiot Confederate-sympathizing Trump-supporting junior senator of mine, Cindy Hyde-Smith, here on Balloon Juice or on my Bluesky account … but none of her staffers will ever see it.
For them to see ANYTHING from me (although I’m sure they could care less and I know their boss couldn’t), I’d have to put it on Twitter or Facebook. And, yes, there’s always emails, regular mail, phone calls to the office, and, yes, I do those. But responding in near-real time to something they post on social media provides true feedback.
So … if I’m not “talking to them”, how indeed will they take my concerns into consideration (theoretically, at least)?
Starfish (she/her)
@Professor Bigfoot:
@Kay:
I think people are talking about stuff like this. After trying to overthrow the government, Trump did not stay to greet the incoming President even though that is how it is usually done.
Should Biden stick around to welcome a person who attempted to undermine an election by threatening election officials in various states and by having some people show up to create chaos at the vote counting? To do so seems weird.
Baud
@gene108:
Good. We don’t want American democracy to die.
Soprano2
QFT. They don’t care at all when liberals are censored and “cancelled”. Alleged “free speech warrior” Bill Maher isn’t a bit concerned with censorship of books about gay and transgender people, but boy don’t tell a Nazi they can’t give a speech on a college campus, where evidently everyone should be forced to listen to it or something.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: You guys are making me feel a lot less bad about my spice cabinet and fridge. I am GRATEFUL to know i ain’t the onliest one.
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne:
I imagine their fear of queerness is because–unlike Blackness–it can and does pop up in their families unbidden. So the potential “danger” is more immediate.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: @Betty Cracker: Agree 100%.
It’s always amazing to me how racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc….. they all get cooked together into one big stew of insanity.
Betty Cracker
Just saw two eagles flying over the river! One landed in a tree on the other side, and its mate flew to a perch nearby. Got this crap photo:
One eagle had a piece of moss in its talon as it flew, which I assume means they intend to build a nest nearby? Great news for me, less so for the other nesting birds since eagles are so bird-predatory.
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Yep. It was hating overtly on gay people that brought out the Tea Baggers in 2010 to vote for the anti-gay marriage amendment here in NC and locked in GOP rule through their subsequent gerrymandering after winning the legislature.
And the anti-trans ad that played multiple times during EVERY sports broadcast apparently significantly moved the needle this election.
It’s a real thing in religious circles and conservative circles generally.
I think Tim Walz had a GREAT strategy with “mind your own damn business”, and that will work better with the CONservatives than the “love thy neighbor” the religious ones claim to follow.
Don’t want the gubmint telling you you can’t watch porn? These GOP God-Botherers need to mind their own damn business. Don’t vote for God-Botherers trying to tell YOU what to do.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: Fly, Eagles, Fly!
I’ve seen them fishing more than birding here in PA.
Kristine
@Baud: The thing with FB is that you can set it up—at least on the desktop version—so you only see posts from friends/ like minds and vice versa. I’m able to pre approve anyone who requests to follow me on my personal page. It’s almost like Bluesky in that respect.
Not saying Zuckerberg won’t try to wreck it all—see those asinine AI avatars they tested that blew up spectacularly.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson:
Not one speck of it. [sigh]
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
Power was transitioned, Nixon was very much alive and in good health, nothing prevented him from being there.
IOW, exceptions have justifications.
We’re on the same page then.
TBone
Mood music for Jan. 7 by The Stones
m.youtube.com/watch?v=mphSvuLGAQo
Betty Cracker
@O. Felix Culpa: I definitely think that’s a factor. Same with “women’s lib,” which evangelicals I knew growing up — men and women — decried constantly.
Suzanne
@O. Felix Culpa:
YUP. Most of them have a gay family member, sometimes they even know it! And they’re utterly ashamed of it, they don’t talk about it to one another. Sometimes they stop talking to that person or isolate their kids from them. One of the things that always made me feel heartbroken for my LGBTQ+ friends who went through this would try to maintain those family relationships at great personal emotional cost to themselves, because they had a niece or nephew who had confided in them, and they wanted to be there for them.
But they talk about it to their liberal friends, in private! And all the other bad behavior, they do with their liberal friends, where they won’t be observed! Surveillance is a dynamic.
p.a.
It’s kinda the Atwater theory. Atwater was “move to kinda-ambiguous, impressionistic political language”, and with the god-botherers it’s “find a target. Any target will do, and can vary from person to person. There’ll be something somewhere in the “good book” to back it up.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
Seeing a Bald Eagle for the 1st time or 745th time, the joyful reaction is always the same, never diminishes.
We get them smack dab in the middle of Denver, here at City Park, every winter:
tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g33388-d129124-r665927049-City_Park_Denver-Denver_Colorado.html#phot…
Many people applaud Nixon for banning DDT…except the good folks at the American Enterprise Institute:
aei.org/articles/the-worst-thing-nixon-ever-did/
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud:
Yep. Its a combo of members in good standing of the Circular Firing Squad and chaos agents firing from the outside in. If they crap all over any progress, it makes progress less likely.
oldgold
Yesterday, there was a thread concerning the merits of establishing a shadow cabinet.
It caused me to wonder whether we need a hero like Bonnie Tyler was holding out for to rally around.
“I need a hero; I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night; He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast; And, he’s gotta be fresh from the fight.”
m.youtube.com/watch?v=dPXKYb6w4Ac
If so, who would this hero be?
Then, again, Tina Turner might have been correct. “We don’t need another hero.”
m.youtube.com/watch?v=HLBXAs2LO8k
Soprano2
Yes, I observe the same thing. They truly believe that if only they can keep their kids from learning that there are gay people then none of them will ever be gay. They believe it’s a choice people make; even when you ask them if they could ever “choose” to be attracted to a person of the same sex to show how crazy that idea is, they refuse to believe it’s something people are born with. People also underestimate the feeling of disgust they feel toward gay people. That’s why they make being gay all about their sex lives, as if that’s the totality of what a gay person is. I think many of them are secretly titillated and intrigued, but would never admit it. I’m sure gay porn is popular in these communities.
Starfish (she/her)
@Soprano2: Bill Maher, smug athiest, always stands up for Christianity being superior to other religions and engages in Islamophobia.
TBone
Pussy Riot presents:
Putin’s Ashes
m.youtube.com/watch?v=ni_CRPAw_5Q
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: Rod Morrow on The Black Guy Who Tips podcast jokes about this all the time. But not in the way you think. He points out that every Black family has that crazy MAGA or hotep Uncle who believes and says some misogynist or homo/transphobic bullshit here and there and everyone pushes back if it’s egregious but mostly just tries to get along and to generally avoid politics or gender discussions when those people are around. This social media tendency to blast White People for not flipping the Thanksgiving table and disowning our problematic family that we disagree with politically is kind of hilarious to him, because as he puts it, it’s not like Black families act any differently with their problematic relatives.
Another commenter (I think it was Chris or ChrisJohnson) spelled out how this shit plays out in his experience, and it 100% matches my own. Problematic family members don’t act up all the time. In fact, most of the time, they stay on their best behavior because they HAVE been called out for that shit before in the past, sometimes in really traumatic blow-ups/fights (ask me how I know…) and don’t want that smoke again…But family is family, many people believe in grace/forgiveness/trying-to-get-along, holidays are supposed to be fun etc., so most people just do their best to keep shit civil for a few hours and then go our separate ways until next year. I’ve heard enough first hand accounts (and even witnessed some personally) family interactions, parties etc., with Black, Latino, Asian-American, Jewish friends to feel pretty confident that similar dynamics play out in every community and every community manages them about the same way. This notion that White People are constantly just sitting by while our family yells the n-word, at every holiday, is a silly fantasy that is simply not true on any broad scale. It’s only useful as an easy way to dunk on us on Twitter. I don’t even mind the dunking, I often enjoy it and I get why people want/need to do it. But the premise assumptions underlying it are pretty far and exaggerated from what actually happens in most family settings. Our family gatherings aren’t nearly as dramatic as Black Twitter likes to imagine.
Betty Cracker
@TBone: I’ve only seen them fish here too, but from what I’ve read, they love to raid heron nests. Sad!
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Agreed. I see them a fair amount but am always thrilled. They are magnificent!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Professor Bigfoot:
Clam up, get angrily defensive, or repeatedly misdirect. Either way, they have no intention of rethinking anything. They think we are pitifully naive for not believing the worst stereotypes about black people. You can nudge people who are just low info into finding better sources of information as they are more open. That can make a difference sometimes.
UncleEbeneezer
@O. Felix Culpa: THIS! I applaud them for it. They are modeling the right behavior.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: My husband had a friend who was quite a piece of work. He was a divorce attorney who seemed to hate women. He had a marriage that was probably unhappy for 90% of it. We always thought he was gay but might not even know it; he also hated gay people. He was the only person I’ve known as an adult who would use racial and religious slurs right out in the open regardless of who was around. He would come up with nicknames for everyone; I was always proud that he was never able to come up with a nickname for me because he couldn’t figure out how to pigeonhole me. For example, he called my husband “Janeck” because that’s Polish for John, and my husband is (mostly) Polish.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: Yeah, the people in my extended family who have those attitudes, either I’m not talking to them any more or they’re behaving when they’re in my presence. And Thanksgiving dinner at my mom’s is all a bunch of liberal Democrats around the table arguing about exactly how fucked we are, kind of like this place.
Suzanne
@UncleEbeneezer:
YUP. Never underestimate white people’s ability to bottle shit up and go along to get along! Smile through gritted teeth! Make small talk!!!
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
It IMHO demonstrates the fundamental failure of evangelical Christianity: they are far more afraid of being infected by the world than they are possessed of anything positive to infect the world with.
sixthdoctor
Well, I’ll take the victories where I can get them. Hell of a way to treat the future Surgeon General, though.
thedailybeast.com/hulk-hogan-hit-with-mass-booing-on-monday-night-raw-netflix-debut/
Soprano2
Yes, I agree. I listen to “The New Abnormal” because I like a lot of their interviews, but when they get on a “how bad does Garland suck?” kick I grimace, because they sometimes say things that aren’t true. The hosts truly seem to believe a different AG could have thrown TCFG in prison within a few weeks of Biden taking office. They do a lot of “how much do Democrats suck?” and “how have Democrats failed us today?” commentary too. It’s hard to listen to sometimes.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: That’s not just LDS religious people.
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne:
Believe me, I know. I grew up a liberal activist in a very small, very white, very conservative town. The surveillance was communicated in palpable ways. Church was the primary tool.
tobie
The moment sucks. It’s easy to cast about in rage. I’m going to use what little energy I have left for US politics to figure out how I can oppose the incoming admin. Even endorsing an idea like Tim Snyder’s informal “shadow cabinet” (h/t Anne Laurie) is a step in the right direction. Reading up on civil disobedience and protest mvmts feels worthwhile too. Self-care is essential.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: It’s that Social Media Game of one-upmanship: every progressive policy has some kind of limitation or tradeoff or side effect that can be framed as un-progressive, and everyone can go to town on that.
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
I don’t care that much about that – meetings at the WH or whatever – but if you do I think it’s fine to say so.
In my experience and understanding when one party no longer honors norms and traditions (as opposed to laws, SHALL means what it says) then the other party is no longer obligated to extend those courtesies. No one has a duty to be a doormat or treated like shit. Reciprocity is the rule. That’s a norm too and just as important as any other.
If you think the norm rested on reciprocity and now that has been shattered by one side, you think reciprocity is a necessary precondition, I think a lot of people would agree with that.
Biden is no longer violating because Trump threw out the social norm contract. I see the sense in that.
RevRick
@AnnieLaurie “A philosopher?” Martin Luther himself would not only deny he was a philosopher, but was pretty dismissive of philosophy in general. He was a theologian, first and foremost, and that stand he took cracked open our world. All of us here today, are the children of a world where the stranglehold that Catholicism was smashed. It is a world where a certain famous Monty Python sketch can make fun of the Spanish Inquisition.
Luther had his massive faults, and my own Calvinist tradition had its own fights with him, but those words powerfully asserted the right of liberty of conscience.
eemom
MG has one last chance not to be a chickenshit coward. We’ll see.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
Except they would claim that the infection must’ve come from outside, that s/he picked up a gay-friendly book at the school library, so the shelves there must be expunged. After all, nobody raised in a good, wholesome, clean Christian environment would ever turn gay, because nobody is really inherently gay, because God doesn’t make mistakes. Or so they claim.
ETA: Looks like Soprano2 said it earlier and better @175.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
The bigger problem isn’t with any specific response. It’s that in many family settings, right wingers are dominant and left wingers are submissive. Integrate that dynamic, and you get the national society we have.
You can be dominant by silence or be dominant by yelling, and you can be submissive by doing both as well. The attitude and self confidence are more important than the specific action.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2:
Straight white Christian male supremacy.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: This dynamic is the same, IMO, between Evangelical Protestants, LDS, and conservative Catholics.
I would be interested if it’s the same in Muslim and Hindu families.
TBone
If you need a laugh, this is great
bsky.app/profile/greene.haus/post/3lf5aqphtik2x
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
I agree with ditching norms with respect to hard political tactics that can gain you something concrete, like ditching the filibuster or blue slips in the Senate in order to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act or remold our corrupt judiciary.
However I strongly disagree with respect to longstanding ceremonial norms. That way leads to toddlers smearing shit on walls, and I like to think we’re better than that. I’m glad that Biden and Harris are modeling that Better Way. I expect that Kamala will also model how to fight the fascists in the coming years.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2:
I’ve heard a more sophisticated version: they argue that a lot of people are on some kind of bi spectrum (true), and then insist that if that’s so, we ought to be encouraging them to express only their hetero tendencies, because God or the survival of the species or whatever. The mental model of religious homophobes, while they wouldn’t phrase it this way, is basically that everyone is inherently bi, but we freely choose “sin” or not.
I think that kind of attack is part of the reason some old-time gay activists were reluctant to acknowledge that bisexuality was a thing. (Along with the idea that it was just a way to be semi-closeted.)
I tend to agree more with my friend who argues that it shouldn’t matter whether it’s a choice, any more than it should matter whether your favorite flavor of ice cream is a choice.
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
I can tell you something funny. Just for kicks I comment on wingnut accounts on TikTok. TikTok is not Bluesky or Twitter. It’s relative newbies to politics, it’s amateur hour over there which of course I LOVE because it’s shooting fish in a barrel and I am 100% about trolling them.
They hate, hate, hate when I talk about how rude and nasty they are. It gets more responses than anything else. And that makes sense to me because I recognize the TikTok MAGAs. They’re comfortable middle class white people from rural areas or suburbs cosplaying as tough guys or girls. They are not authentic.
My most objected to comment yesterday was I said they would “ruin” Jimmy Carters funeral because they “don’t know how to act”.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne:@Professor Bigfoot:
I’d say my success rate has been zero (maybe below zero) in my elders. Its been low in adults. Its been OK in the children of my MAGA contemporaries. By not cutting ties with my MAGA family members, I’ve been able to let their children see another way of thinking. I haven’t tried to change them. Just by existing and pushing back against statements their parents made, it has made some difference. I think if I had tried to push the kids to think my way, it would have been less effective.
WTFGhost
Delete – forgot it was a bad morning when I shouldn’t speak.
Professor Bigfoot
A subtle but vitally important point.
It makes me think of how we should define “tolerance” as a social contract, and those who are intolerant therefore are outside of that contract.
TBone
bsky.app/profile/daviddarmofal.bsky.social/post/3lf5owi6bqc27
oldgold
I do not like where this seems to be heading.
“CNN:In filings, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira ask Judge Aileen Cannon to block the release of the special counsel report, which was expected in the coming days before Trump is sworn in as president for the second time. The two men, who both worked for Trump and have pleaded not guilty to obstruction related crimes, argued in the filings that Smith does not have the authority to release the report because Cannon previously deemed his appointment as special counsel unlawful.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Agreed. My point was we handle shit the same as every other group. We have slightly more bullshit because more MAGA in our families, but all in all, I think people exaggerate the differences between groups. And doing so is not really accurate or useful.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: it’s the best contract law ever not written.
O. Felix Culpa
@Professor Bigfoot:
It pretty much always comes down to that, doesn’t it. Our country was built on Racial Genocide and Slavery (plus a major dose of misogyny), and nearly everything else flows from it: Manifold Destiny, Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, Tulsa, redlining, you name it.
Trouble is that the fanfic called American History we were taught in school mysteriously omits, sugarcoats, and straight-up lies about it.
p.a.
Also too, queerness isn’t obvious like skintone. That’s a real threat to controllers.
TBone
@WTFGhost: it’s not a bad morning in my world.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Freedom’s just another word for lying all you want.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist:
But many will take all the effort required to bridge it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: I’ve carefully avoided TikTok forever, but now I’m reconsidering that just to follow you.
”Y’all don’t know how to act right.”
I’m filing that under “it wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t so true.”
WTFGhost
@Professor Bigfoot: Tolerance can’t be mandated with the First Amendment in the way, ergo, the bigots will always operate outside its structure. Ergo, we will always have people trying to make this a less free country, through use of terror, e.g., Donnie Boy wanting to shoot protestors in the legs, to terrorize them into staying home and silent.
satby
Homophobia is another form of misogyny. Men submitting sexually to another male (like a female??!) or women sexually attracted to women instead of men as their God intended so that they would be fruitful and multiply??! Transgender people threatening the entire patriarchy by rejecting the roles their genitailia implies they are??!
It’s all misogyny in service to patriarchy.
tobie
Since this is an open thread, I’ll ask how the hell RFK, Jr because a cult figure. I mean, seriously: the guy has an ugly history (silver spoon, drug addiction, preying on nannies and au pairs), serial cheating on wives, gross episodes (whale head on car), a horrible voice, and complicity in catastrophe (measles in Samoa). You don’t rise to the top without sponsors. Who’s pushed, peddled and sponsored RFK, Jr?
O. Felix Culpa
@p.a.: Good point.
@satby: Also good points.
Professor Bigfoot
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: “If your plan is for 100 years, educate children.”
All you can do is all you can do.
tobie
@oldgold: Yeah, I read that they were going to Cannon and immediately felt a pit in my stomach. She’s going to sit on this till Jan 19, making an expedited hearing in the 11th Circuit impossible.
ETA: What if it were released today?
TBone
Liz Cheney’s response to Donald Trump’s efforts to block the Special Counsel from issuing his final report:
bsky.app/profile/lizcheney.bsky.social/post/3lf5rwbslp22y
Professor Bigfoot
@O. Felix Culpa: “Ahhh, but ain’t that America, for you and me, Ain’t that America, something to see, baby, ain’t that America, home of the ‘freeee,’ yeah…”
Belafon
@Starfish (she/her): But are you honoring the person or the office?
different-church-lady
@TBone: oh, so he’s gonna review the content but not the facts, eh?
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: You hit the nail on the head when you discussed reciprocity.
I don’t care about the various weird social contracts that they have going on; but if one side is breaking the social contract, the other side doesn’t have to hold it up.
TBone
@different-church-lady: it’s even worse than that! Whocouldanode?
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: I saw one skinning a squirrel and gobbling down the skin (and fur) in the local park once. I read somewhere before then that they don’t like to eat mammals, but the Smithsonian says they’ll eat anything (but prefer fish).
And that’s a nice shot, BC!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Belafon
@tobie: Musk, Jr, the pillow guy, Putin, and a few other people know how to speak Trump. If you can’t speak true Trump, but think you can, you get manipulated by him.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: I agree. Its not that race isn’t a big factor, but for a lot of religious conservatives, the big issue is the traditional family patriarchy. LGBTQ+ and women’s rights directly threaten this. Fundamentalist Christians sort of adapted to women in the work force (as long as they aren’t leaders), because they bring in income and still do most of the child care and housework. However, anything that undermines men controlling women must be fought with the fury of 100 suns.
The idea that gender is an identity instead of a fixed biological assignment is what pushed Dreher completely over the edge.
oldgold
@tobie: Count on Garland being a day late and a dollar short.
WTFGhost
@RevRick: Luther was a philosopher. I’m sorry – that’s what he did. That his philosophy included some axioms that are rejected by non-theologians doesn’t change things, either.
He may have been a philosopher, in service to his Lord – no problems there. But just saying “what I’m doing isn’t philosophy, because GOD!!!!!” reminds me of people who say they aren’t into that horrible, awful, BDSM stuff, but they like to tie each other up, a little spanking, etc. (which is “BDSM” – an inclusive term for kink of various sorts).
Just because you don’t like the name, doesn’t mean the name can’t be appropriately applied, and if you deny you’re doing, what you’re actually doing, then you’re really not sure of what you *ARE* doing in the first place.
Just like most people I’ve seen use the term “Occam’s Razor,” which, simply stated, says “say where the evidence takes you, THEN STOP.” It doesn’t say look for the “simplest explanation” – it says, “take the one that doesn’t go beyond the evidence.”
*That*, if you think of it, is what you’d want a “razor” to cut free – the stuff you can’t be sure of, because the evidence doesn’t support it.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: All. Of. This.
The “male” in “white supremacy” is often silent, but it’s ALWAYS there; and the express purpose of the Patriarchy itself is the control and domination of women.
They do it in the name of their religion, so this is the conservative movement:
Straight white Christian male domination of all aspects of American government, society, and culture.
They NEED to be able to tell all the rest of us what to do.
TBone
Tolerance as a contract meme
ifunny.co/picture/the-paradox-of-tolerance-disappears-if-you-look-at-tolerance-aVVotFEMA
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I had an old online friend who used to repeat what I’d call the seemingly-thoughtful version of every right-wing talk line. I seemingly managed to convince him that same-sex marriage should be legal by hammering away at it for years. Just that one issue. Baby steps.
Another guy, he wasn’t really a right-winger but he hung out with all these Internet Libertarians and absorbed their ideas… I managed to be the guy who alerted him to the fact that tax brackets don’t work they way they do in conservative propaganda, where making more money would actually make you poorer (though the ham-fisted cutoffs on some aid programs for the poor do work that way!!) I considered that a major victory.
Starfish (she/her)
@Belafon: Sometimes we need the new tradition of leaving a thousand dildos in the Oval Office.
Do you remember when the Republicans under George W. Bush just made up the rumor Clinton people pulled all the Ws off the keyboards just because they hated Clinton so much?
Quiltingfool
@lowtechcyclist:
This made me chuckle a bit. My cousin is gay. His family is religious, in no way did they do anything to “make a child choose to be gay.” Yet, they have one child who is gay. How did that happen?
I have zero patience with people who believe folks “choose” to be gay. Really? When I reached puberty, I do not remember consciously choosing to be attracted (sexually) to a person of the opposite gender. I just WAS. No thought required! I assume everyone has a similar experience; you are attracted to either same or opposite gender (or both!) without really thinking about it.
I want to ask people who think you can make a gay person straight, if they think the reverse would work for them (straight to gay). We know what the answer would be…
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
Yup. Completely sensible. Reciprocity is as much a norm in civil society as any other. That’s the norm you’re upholding.
Matt McIrvin
@tobie: I don’t know about sponsors, but his early environmental activism and his attention-getting family name got him a lot of liberal media access in the early days, which he exploited when he started saying the antivax stuff. His first big antivax “exposé” ran in Rolling Stone!
Another Scott
There are three special elections today in Virginia. Send all the good thoughts you can spare to the Commonwealth today.
Best wishes,
Scott.
O. Felix Culpa
@Professor Bigfoot:
Truth. When my wife and I got married, her fundie brother asked, with deep puzzlement, “But when you two disagree, who will be the decider in the family?” [lightly paraphrased].
Because OF COURSE a man must be the decider. It’s the White Evangelical Patriarchal Way! We still get a chuckle out of that, especially when we’ve respectfully negotiated our way through a disagreement.
Suzanne
@satby:
Agree. And “women’s lib” is broadly seen by a lot of these people as drawing good subservient Christian women away from their Biblical role of wife/mother/maidservant to lesbianism, criminality, etc.
I remember my grandfather — who would give me a lecture if I brought home a report card with a B on it — seeing a story on some sensationalist news program about a woman at Harvard committing a crime. He stared at the screen and said, “That’s what you get when you teach women how to read.”
satby
@lowtechcyclist: not really.
TBone
DeathSantis bizzy wrecking education in FL with P2025 nazis:
apnews.com/article/university-west-florida-desantis-board-appointees-7aa4d99cf322228fc73a471fe0cbf14…
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@satby: Got there before me! :)
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: Social. Media. Is. KILLING. Us.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Another Scott:
Having spent time for work in Juneau, it’s hysterical to see the ginormous number of Bald Eagles acting like your bog-standard scavenger down here in the Lower 48.
They’ll be half a dozen of them perched on street lamp arms and dozens around commercial dumpster sites. And if something edible appears, it’s open season. This is just one video among a ton showing what it looks like:
newsweek.com/jaws-drop-woman-greeted-flock-bald-eagles-1863106
As somebody once said “They’re basically vultures with better PR”.
Big Fly
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’ve read from several sources that Costco has entered an agreement with THRIVE to build low-cost housing (or perhaps mixed-) above Costco stores. Living there, the traffic noise would drive me nuts (and my shopping costs would explode), but that idea is pretty cool.
I’ve been a member since the early 80s (Price Club, then) and I intend to shop there, “until I drop.”
tobie
@Belafon: That’s illumintating. Thanks. “Speaking Trump” means being fluent in conning and that’s what RFK, Jr is: a conman @Kay: often talks about the wellness industry. If these stats are true, the industry may be one of the largest lobbyists under the radar in the US…I guess it fits with the history of snake oil salesmen in the US:
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: One of the regulars at the Thanksgiving dinner I attend is Black, gay, and has been an activist of one kind or another forever. At dinner a few years ago, I asked him what reparations should look like, and funding education was basically his first answer. He thought that cash payments weren’t useful, not least because the details of that would be difficult to work out, but also that improving education for every neighborhood, especially targeting poor neighborhoods, would have the desired effect and would be harder to push back against. (I agreed completely, and I added that we needed something like postal banking, particularly in poor neighborhoods.) Education is the biggest key.
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Ben Franklin did not think highly of them… and to be honest, here in 2025, Ben’s preference for the turkey seems painfully appropriate.
p.a.
You should see the looks I get when I hear this and respond, “why would anyone choose to be a target for bigots like you?” Haven’t been punched yet, and, and now that I’m 60+yo, hitting me is a felony here.
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: I remember seeing RFK, JR on MSNBC ages ago and I was unimpressed. He was fighting the building of a windmill farm in Cape Cod and I remember thinking to myself this is about nothing but his view from his family retreat. Climate change kills way more birds than windmills.
WTFGhost
@different-church-lady: Yes, they will.
Um. Are you okay, in the sense of good support (even if it’s all self-support)? I have a bunch of friendly concerns that I couldn’t even try to put into a response, but, when I’m cranky enough to:
think people WILL crap on others, and
SAY that I think people will crap on others…
… then, I’m crossing my own personal warning signs for mood.
Because it’s true, people will crap on others, but it’s also true, that’s not the normal reaction (though it’s far too *common*). So, I ask myself, why am I feeling like the bad guys are winning so much?
(Yes, I’m ignoring the obvious reasons why I feel despairing. We *all* get good at ignoring existential despair. I’m talking about plumbing specific despair.)
O. Felix Culpa
@narya:
I wonder if supporting access to home ownership might also be helpful in reparations. Most families build generational wealth through housing, which Black folks were denied for decades (centuries). Might be a way to rectify that impactful wrong.
Josie
@O. Felix Culpa:
This, every word of this. They are showing how things should be done.
TBone
More from Stelter (plus Meta’s antitrust lawsuits) regarding Fascistbook:
Joel Kaplan is from the Dubya admin. and is besties with Boof Kavanaugh.
view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/17362581854393e4527cc336e/raw
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: Social media is just where the game happens now. I remember this kind of gridlock being all over the left before the Internet was a thing; it just happened in letters columns and activist groups.
different-church-lady
@WTFGhost: I appreciate the concern. While I share your despair about the state of society, I’m blessed personally with good support, good love, and very recently, significant improvement in my finances.
JML
@Matt McIrvin: That’s basically it. RFJ Jr. got some status through his wealth, famous name, and some decent environmental activism. He was always a mediocre lawyer, but the enviros he was working with were mostly happy to let him get out front and be a public face in order to elevate their work and attract the attention of a publication like Rolling Stone and others that were (and probably still are) obsessed with the Kennedys. It’s not like there was a cabal behind him or anything: just the usual US aristocracy of wealth and fame.
And he did do some useful environmental work early on…and then started going to down rabbit holes and conspiracies. His old environmental partners had distanced themselves from him before he started in on the anti-vaxx crap. but publicly people didn’t really know about all of the awful stuff in his personal life. It was around and you could figure it out, but the magazines in the 90’s and 00’s weren’t interested in doing dark exposes of the Kennedy’s…they were interested in the Camelot glamour and making sure they and their editors got invited to the parties on Martha’s Vineyard…
tam1MI
The legacy media didn’t learn their lesson then. Hopefully this time around they will.
different-church-lady
@WTFGhost: As for crapping on others:
* Maybe it’s not a common default mode, but trust me, there are people who live to crap on others.
* Politically, people are far more likely to crap on strangers and impersonal groups than they are a person standing right in front of them.
* The bad guys ARE winning, so our despair is an indication we have a grip on the situation. But they’re winning trenches. It’s scary to see them winning these kinds of trenches. It’s movement towards something very very ugly that too many are just shrugging off. And I don’t think the fix will be political.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: Also, antivax advocacy may horrify us but the whole alt-med/supplement/”wellness” complex is inherently appealing to a broad swath of Americans–the whole message that you can make yourself healthy without conventional medicine by mastering your body and avoiding “toxins” has an intuitive pull.
(And not just Americans: my impression is that Germans are more into homeopathic medicine than we are, to the extent that it can be hard even to buy real OTC medicine at a drug store.)
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: You mean to say I can avoid taking all the pharmaceuticals if I just eat a bunch of these pills filled with powder?
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s also often borne in deep distrust and bad experience with medicine. Which, not surprisingly….. often breaks down along the familiar racial and gender lines. Having those bad experiences — the doctor who can’t figure out your endometriosis for a decade, as merely one example — often becomes a gateway for woo woo.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The first time I realized racism was a whole complicated ideology and not just a visceral dislike, it was talking to a Mormon kid on my school bus. And it was about 1977, just about a year before the LDS President got his new revelation.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: Once you have the visceral dislike, you need a sophisticated cover story.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: As someone LGBTQ+, maintaining relationships with my GOP/MAGA family has been very hard. They are better than most in that regard. They accept me, just don’t approve. However, like I said, my existing has opened minds. I think they’d be worse if I hadn’t been there. There kids are LGBTQ+ friendly (and one of the teens came out recently). So, while I have definitely been criticized for not cutting ties, I think I made the right choice.
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: In Germany, OTC drugs are sold only at pharmacies, which jacks up the prices. You need paracetamol, Maalox, or pertussin, you need to go the pharmacy. The pharmacist will give you some advice, and sometimes this is useful–people talk to their pharmacists there–but mostly it makes little difference.
Herbal remedies are sold at “drug stores” without any consultation and they can be quite strong. Maybe you won’t OD on valarian root, but, boy, can you make yourself groggy.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: They’re natural!
(There’s also a huge overlap with the diet and fitness industry, which starts with claims any credentialed MD would agree with–that a healthy diet and exercise are essential components of health–and elaborates it into a huge universe of amateur body-hacking.)
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: I might add “able-bodied” to that as well.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@tobie: This presents the perfect line of attack. The woo folks are very anti-corporate. Yet, they are promoting vulture capitalists. We can heighten the contradiction.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I will never criticize anyone for that choice.
To get back to where we started: If we’re going to try to come and get our fellow white people…. this is the only way we can do it. One holiday dinner, one coffee date with a friend, one softball game at a time.
Harrison Wesley
@Professor Bigfoot: What about the pigeon? It’s fat, it’s stupid, and it shits on everything.
tobie
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Absolutely. You nailed the contradiction of the new right. They claim to be anticorporate but love the kleptocracy that is busy robbing them blind.
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady:
Spot on.
Bupalos
@Baud: Generalizing individual behavior to everyone contained in an administrative border. Why do we do this? Who are we trying to convince and why?
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: There’s a lot of online scolding demanding that people should:
1.) cut ties with problematic family but also
2.) “collect your people” ie- put in the patient, thankless, work to help them change.
There’s literally no way to do both. If you do 1, you can’t do 2 and vice versa. It’s always a judgement call depending on a whole bunch of factors.
I’m trying to get better at giving people more grace for doing the best they can. There’s no simple rule to follow. It’s complicated and context-specific.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I think the modern left often expresses its political obligations in entirely negative, avoidant terms, in a kind of pursuit of personal purity: avoid bad actions, boycott the bad companies, shun the bad people.
It may have some roots in environmentalism where you have to confront the fact that essentially any action a human being takes is destructive, and, as Charlie Stross once put it, the ideal is for us to approach being dead as closely as possible.
But if our ideology is in any way pro-human, it’s a sterile approach on its own.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Most white religious conservatives probably have never even encountered enough people of color with enough frequency to have developed visceral dislike. They develop stereotypes and tokenism instead!
A weird anecdote: when I grew up on Long Island, in a pretty working-class area, my class was really racially mixed. Then we moved to Arizona, and my class was almost all white. We went on a field trip to the state Capitol, and there were kids there from schools all over the city. One of my classmates leaned over to me and said, “I’ve never seen so many black people”. I remember being, like, utterly floored. To the point that I remember it decades later.
This is what I mean about racism shaping what we see as normal.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Whoa!
I love seeing bald eagles. I see more Goldens out here at the Mountain Hacienda, but it’s always a thrill to see the Baldies! They like to hang out on the Arkansas River. :)
RandomMonster
You are wise. I’m doing the same. On the weekend I purged and cleansed the fridge. Then I made a bunch of falafel I can eat for lunches all week.
Princess
@Suzanne: I think this is a really good point. They’re terrifed of the Gay because it happens in their own families. They can’t control it. And Trans is the new Gay for them.
It’s hard for us to reckon with because once you stop caring whether people are gay/trans/ whatever, it is really hard to understand how hatred against them can still animate others so much. It feels fake/contrived. But it does animate them.
cmorenc
@Baud: even in a solidly red state-since-statehood like Nebraska where Trump won 60-40, that’s still just 1 out of 10 voters to persuade differently. And in all but such solidly red states, the number is more like 1 out of every 40 or 1 out of every 50.
Not saying that is a trivial task, but doable, especially if Trump’s Tariffs begin to hit them up their ass.
Baud
@Bupalos:
Because people need to take responsibility for that people they elect. That’s how they have achieved the upper hand against us.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: I am in the middle of finally reading Dying of Whiteness, and feeling like the title really should have been Dying of White Maleness.
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: He is most of them. There, happy now?
different-church-lady
@cmorenc: “Look, 30% inflation is a small price to pay if it keeps the black family from having a curtain rod.”
cmorenc
@Princess: Trans has a vastly more potent “ick” and disturbing “other” factor than gay to many people. Those factors dissolved wrt gay folks in large part through nonthreatening familiarity over time. Precisely because trans people are a far smaller number among the population than gay people, there’s much less chance for people to regularly find them among their own close circled and grow accustomed to them in more comfortable circumstances to diffuse and dissipate the “ick” and “otherness” factors.
Belafon
@Starfish (she/her): So where do you decide that you’re no longer going to honor the system? I get it, the other side sucks. And the new old guy will never get my support. But when do you decide that the system itself is no longer worth your effort? When do you decide to let the office be about Trump?
rikyrah
rolandsmartin
@rolandsmartin
Wow. The full video of the exchange between
@VP
@kamalaharris
, Nebraska
@SenatorFischer
and her asshole husband, Bruce, is even worse. This bastard – a professor at
@UNLincoln
– was so scared to stand next to her that VP Harris literally said, “It’s ok. I won’t bite. Don’t worry.” His contempt for her is very clear. He can GO TO HELL.
x.com/rolandsmartin/status/1876386785674064348
Princess
@cmorenc: The numbers of trans people are small compared to total population, but when i count the number of trans people I know under thirty, just among my family and closest friends … well, I am guessing every single relatively affluent and educated conservative knows at least one family with a young trans/nonbinary/genderqueer member. I think it’s freaking them out.
KatKapCC
@TBone: You really love that phrase, don’t you?
Harrison Wesley
@KatKapCC: My take on the Speaker is a bit different – he’s the 21st century Norman Bates.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: My mother and I could not talk about politics because it made family gatherings unpleasant for everyone else, so we decided to just not mention it. I wouldn’t refrain from expressing an opinion if someone brought something up, but I wouldn’t bring it up myself.
cmorenc
@different-church-lady: The louder higher grocery prices walk over family budgets, the less potent the bullshit distractions talk. Unless Trump makes some sort of huge carve-out for non documented ag workers, the effects will be sharply felt by many of his softer voters.
Kay
@tam1MI:
Give up on them. They don’t hire for conservatism, they hire for conventionality. They will always, always uphold the status quo whatever the status quo is. Their work on Watergate was an absolute one-off. They never repeated it.
Liberals need a media space like blogging was in the early aughts. Too, I would REMIND people there was plenty of dissent in blogs- this idea we all have to be lockstep like our every utterance is a campaign ad is brand new in Democratic politics. It has never been behind any progress we ever made.
It’s also punching down, which we used to reject. If you’re yelling at some rank and file voter or commentor for disrespecting Joe Biden or Garland you are punching down. They are WILDLY powerful people.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: You know I was agreeing with you, right?
cmorenc
@Princess: and at first, so did the discovery of gays in their family tree. Most folks don’t yet have (or at least recognize) that trans folks are there, too – because they are not nearly so proportionately numerous, even given that many are still hiding in plain sight shying away from outing themselves. Your circumstances seem still much more the exception than with gays in their family tree family midst.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think that’s funny, because part of their butthurt about “woke” is that they want to be able to be rude!! Sounds like you’re suggesting they’re rude in a way they don’t want to be perceived as being. They think their culture is superior to all others. A good illustration of this is the country song about ruining his ex’s “black tie affair”. They think that’s a great way to be rude, because it rubs it in the faces of the hoity-toity people who they believe look down on them – probably because of behavior like that!
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
And if you’re yelling at a rank and file commenter who upholds respect for Biden and/or Garland, or who disagrees with your take on Gaza, or your take on trans people, or your take any other issue du jour, that’s not punching down? Want to be clear on the rules here.
Kay
Here’s what the attorney general has for investigatory and prosecutorial resources. He has the FBI, the Secret Service, the Postal Inspection service, the ATF, ICE, and 93 US Attorneys. He has 100,000 attorneys, special agents and other staff just in the DOJ You should expect him to prosecute the bad guys. It’s not too much to ask.
rikyrah
@Professor Bigfoot:
UH HUH
UH HUH
Bupalos
@Baud: so you’re aiming this comment at convincing Nebraskans,-and given the venue, specifically liberal Nebraskans- that they aren’t being sufficiently… responsible? This isn’t adding up for me.
lowtechcyclist
@Big Fly:
Unfortunately any Costco around here would involve a 90-minute round trip (assuming good traffic) to somewhere I wouldn’t otherwise be anywhere near. So I guess I’ll stick with regular grocery stores.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
I don’t know what “upholds respect” means. The President of the United States really needs protection from a Ballon Juice commentor criticizing him? Obama was widely criticized by the rank and file. He somehow managed to bear up and turn in a very good performance.
It seems like a reaction to me. Defensive. Not confident. What people who are losing and don’t know how to turn it around do. I don’t know how to turn it around either but I don’t think this is the way. It isn’t what we are.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: No one person is “most of them,” and nut-picking individual examples and insisting they represent the majority is an internet-mediated brain-wasting disease.
MomSense
@oldgold:
I think the whatever avengers we may assemble need to be organized around a central person. My initial thoughts are that it should be Harris from CA as the leader of the opposition party and because she has the qualities needed, ethics, compassion, etc. she is also the leader of the party. It has to be California because I think that is the only state big enough to keep her safe.
In terms of shadow cabinet it would have to be coordinated because I really think whoever emerges as the opposition needs to speak with one or at least voices in harmony. Too many elected Dems will have to curry favor in order to get assistance from the federal government. Expect to see conciliatory language from Democratic governors and congressional delegations. Their states may need disaster aid or pandemic assistance. It’s going to be ugly and they have to protect their constituents.
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: Ah. So you’re not happy now.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
As a Black person, the thought that I would take seriously a religion that had me going to HELL for my mere existence as a Black person… in my lifetime….
No, I don’t think so.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I don’t want to spoil the next two threads:
tobie
Oh fuck, it happened.
mastodon.social/@lawfare/113788153977580256
Dorothy A. Winsor
@tobie: How can she do that? Who the hell is she to direct the Attorney General?
tobie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A federal.judge. Nauta and another defendant petitioned her. She will sit on this till Jan 20.
mvr
@rikyrah: I dislike my university as much as anyone, but I don’t believe that her husband is a UNL professor. There is a different person with an alternate spelling of Fisher (with a C) who looks entirely different in the directory. Also they live in Valentine – a long ways from here. And the bios I have read jonline ust say they met at UNL, not that he is a professor.
Her bio on her website says he his a rancher from Valentine.
Baud
@Bupalos:
I’m calling it as I see it. This is their collective culture. If a blue state person’s spouse acted that way, the right would call us out.
Bupalos
@MomSense: I think we need to find folks that can do the politics as well as the policy. And it’s a new politics, one that is inherently anti-establishment, loud-mouthed, and that can talk in everyday language and create spectacle around it’s policy agenda. Basically we have to find a responsible left populism.
Politicians like Biden and Harris have their strengths, but those strengths didn’t fit the moment and will be even more of a mismatch going forward.
tobie
@Bupalos: Do it. It will be a Mondale-like defeat.
Bupalos
@Baud: the term “blue state person” is throwing me for too much of a loop to have any response.
UncleEbeneezer
@tobie: I blame Garland for not receiving it yet and Jack Smith for adhering to rules.
rikyrah
@Kay:
In other words, you told them that they have ‘ no home training’.
BWA HA HA AHA HA HA HA HA AHA
Kay
@MomSense:
I like it too and good point about state Dems having to go along to.protect their people.
Its nice to have an actual new idea to bat around and consider. I’m hoping we get a lot more of them.
rikyrah
@tobie:
She can do this for her case.
She can’t do shyt about Chutkin’s case, which Jack Smith should also have a report for.
rikyrah
@Baud:
It would be the lead segment of every Fox show.
Glory b
@Starfish (she/her): ill try.
It was quoted in Ken Burns Civil War documentary.
tobie
@rikyrah: Thank for this wise reminder.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Its EXACTLY that. I live among them. They’re the most class conscious people on earth. They want to cosplay poor folk but they actually look down on them.
One lady apologized – “we didn’t used to be like this” so I felt bad re: her. Just her.
Next I go to how tacky and poorly raised Melania is for the UPPER middle class TikTockers. She’s a racist birther and as big of an asshole as he is. Fair game.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I saw that doofus also wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”!
MomSense
@Kay:
I think CA Gov is too small for Harris. She has a national voice. I also really like the Lt Gov. Full disclosure – one of her sons is a friend of my youngest.
Sure Lurkalot
I guess I won’t hold my breath that someone in the justice department or administration will leak the special counsel report, in adherence to a ruling by a compromised judge in furtherance of petitions from two named co-conspirators.
Rules and norms, norms and rules, somehow lose their meaning when held up to subvert disclosure and sunlight.
Yesterday, the FTFNYT described the January 6th insurrection and attempt to thwart the peaceful transfer of power as a “ritual disrupted by violence.” They also published “The Jan 6 Rioters, 4 Years Later. I guess their thoughts deserve the limelight in a way the special counsel’s investigation doesn’t. A congressperson wants to make it a national holiday. That it is a day to celebrate is probably held by more of our citizens than we’d like to imagine.
lou
@narya:
When the Resolute Desk ended up on the Mall across from the Capitol, I visited it fairly regularly to see the reaction of tourists. There was one presumably MAGA type who was absolutely pissed off. I passive-aggressively and loudly mentioned to my walking partner, “yeah, didn’t they smear feces all over the Capitol?” as the MAGA pretended to pick up the sculpture.
Others thought it was absolutely hilarious. Never saw the Tiki Torch one, though before it was smashed.
Here’s a column from the Post arts critic.
Ruckus
@Kay:
This country, humanity is changing. Some/many are realizing that the advent of relatively rapid communications around the world among populations changes what we see far more than any news program on TV. We get to discuss life, the ups and downs and the good and the bad. It is changing the ways a lot of people see the world around them. This web thing is the biggest part of it. And like every other change in humanity over the centuries it has it’s good parts and not so good. The good part is that we get to do what we are doing here, now, communication. We get to talk about the bigger picture, life, the constraints, the openness. We get to find out how much life has changed and very often for the better. We get to met people we otherwise never would. We get a much bigger, better picture of humanity, the differences, the similarities. And some people HATE THAT. Because it shows them that hiding in your own little box of sun come up, sun go down, hate your neighbors, really is a crappy way to go through life. Some DO NOT LIKE DIFFERENT. They seemingly cannot understand that they do not get to control every breath and word. I’ve been lucky, I’ve traveled a lot in this country and in the world. Humans I’ve met are pretty much the same around the world. Sure we have our differences but for the most part they are minimal. But many in this world seem to believe that they are the center of the universe, know how to live better than anyone else and want the world to be only as they see it. They NEED the justification of their life to be the same as yours or mine. They need something that’s right in front of them but that they can’t see. And might not understand if they did. They think the world must be same for every one. And it never is and never has been and never will be. When I was a kid we had an older couple (mid 80s) living next door. The man was retired from his career working for (if I remember correctly) Standard Oil and literally traveling the world. Listening to them, learning about history that I otherwise never would have known was amazing. One thing it taught me was humans – if they act anything like other humans are pretty much the same the world around and vary from pure shit to actually nice, respectful, smart and understanding. But many view that for them to be right – which they need more than anything else, everyone else must see the world the same way they do, and be and look just like them. Sound familiar? It’s humanity, in all it’s good and all it’s not even close to good. We have cultures with centuries old stories about how life should be and how much better life would be if we were all exactly the same. And all of that is their need to justify their lives. They can’t live and let live. And it destroys living. Brings it down to at best BS. It is “You are different than me and that destroys my justification for living.” It’s bullshit of the highest order and has been with us for eons. Basically it creates two sides, life has to be all the same for everyone or live, enjoy, don’t hurt others.
Which in a world of billions might work better?
Glory b
@rikyrah: Soooo, come and sit with me and Ms. Cat at the mean girls table.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: “One last time”? Oh ye of little faith LOL!
Manyakitty
@zhena gogolia: it’s like you’re reading my mind.
Manyakitty
@Suzanne: TedKnightFromCaddyshack.gif
different-church-lady
@Sure Lurkalot:
IT’S NOT A FUCKIN’ RITUAL, IT’S HOW WE LEGALLY HAVE A PRESIDENT.
Another Scott
@Geminid: I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s been a couple of days since he last said something stupid and butt-hurt, hasn’t it? Wasn’t he griping about flags being a half-staff for Jimmy or something?
It’s what he does. He has to be the center of attention.
People need to pace themselves…
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@UncleEbeneezer:
THIS!
RevRick
@WTFGhost: I’m really uncomfortable with what is for me an imperialistic argument that,”No, you’re really X, when people say they are Y.”
I mean isn’t that what the trans phobic folks are doing, when they keep insisting that trans women are really men?
One could, in fact, more reasonably slap the label of social justice warrior on old Martin since those 95 theses he nailed on the wall of the Wittenberg church was actually an attack on the extortion scheme by the Catholic Church of common people that was called the sale of indulgences.
Or, alternatively, we could call him a psychologist since he wanted to understand how we might effectively deal with or finitude and guilt.
I suspect he might also eschew the label of theologian since he never set out to spin an academic theory.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: Yeppers… I just like distilling it right down to its essence. ;)
Professor Bigfoot
@Harrison Wesley: Except, as I understand it, pigeons are orphans– that once upon a time they were kept as pets by humans and at some point they just got turned out. Which would explain why they hang out around humans so much.
At least, that’s the story I’ve heard.
Although, on more consideration, perhaps the eagle is appropriate– the consummate opportunist, the “buzzard with better PR” sure describes ‘Merica, don’t it?